KINGS & SLAVES

Don’t ask me to take you there.  I don’t want to be that person.

Yes, Egypt may have been predictable and easier than this, but only because we didn’t have the pressure of having to think for ourselves.  Egypt was bondage.  No matter how big the giants of the Promised Land truly are, they are still worth facing.  Don’t ask me to take you back.  I’m not that person. 

There is always a go-to-person for going back. 
But it’s not me.

We’re standing side-by-side looking at the same fortified cities before us.  We’ve come together out of the slavery of Egypt.  We’ve seen God prove Himself in impossible circumstances. 

• We walked with disbelief on dry ground through the guts of a raging sea parted to our right and to our left.
• He fed us bread from Heaven, He sent quail. 
• We were thirsty and He caused water to pour out of a rock for us. 
• We saw His presence in the sky above us by day and by night. 

He brought us here, you and me, to the gates of our Promise.  He said, “Go in and spy it out – it’s amazing”.

We did go and we did see. 

But now, it seems that ‘what’ we saw was different between us. 

We all saw the prosperity and the extravagance of what He wanted to give us.  Yes, we all agreed on that.  It was blessing we didn’t have to work for – bountiful fields we didn’t plant and cities we didn’t have to build.  We all saw the wealth of that Promised Land.  It’s just that now some have focused their attention on the dangers. 

• There are giants in there.  I saw them too. 
• There are armed forces in there.  I saw them too. 
• The land is expansive and overwhelming. I saw it too.

I must have seen something the others didn’t.  I’m sure it was a smug look on my face when I saw it.  I saw a testimony in the making.  I saw our providential and mighty Lord on display yet again.  I saw Him about to show off. 

I saw that too.

So now you ask me to take you back to Egypt, because you’re afraid, and intimidated, and unwilling to do the hard thing.  You mock His intentions – you think He’s led us here to die.  Egypt was better, you say, than this uncertainty, than this responsibility, than this risk.  The slavedriver’s whip was better, you say.  The shackles were better, you say.  Yesterday was better, you say. 

“Let us pick a leader who will take us back to Egypt,” you say (Numbers 14:4).  Well that’s not me.  I won't take you there.  I can’t take you there.  Because I’ve seen more for you. 

I’ve seen our potential and I can’t even consider our past dysfunction anymore.  Let’s not ever mention Egypt again.  I’ve seen what the Lord wants for us and I will not ever ‘un-see’ it. 

It is remarkable. 
It takes my breath away. 
I believe it for you, for us.

The giants are huge, and the nay-sayers are in excess, but I saw His intention and I heard His Promise. 

God said. 
That’s enough for me.

I don’t want a partial freedom, in the wilderness, I want us to be as free as Kings in our Promised Land.  You are right, the wilderness is no place for you or your children, but neither is Egypt.  Don’t go back there.  Don’t ask me to take you, to stroke your dysfunction and wallow with you.  I can’t do it.  I’ve seen more for you, for us and I can’t un-see it.

You are so much better than yesterday’s slavedriver. 

Your Grandpappie was a good man, but he was also a slave, like his father before him.  They taught you what they knew.  Transition is awkward.  You don’t know what you don’t know.  But you have to find it out – if you want to change.  You can’t think like a slave if you want to live free.  What will it take for you to think like a King?

This season in transition was intended to march the slave mentality out of us.  This season of in-between was meant to show us His power. 

Now you face freedom – not just the freedom of escape, but the greater freedom of inheritance. 

We found it easy to run into freedom when the work was behind us.  When the deliverer faced the dictator on our behalf.  When the chariots were on our tails.  Much harder to run into freedom now that the threat is ahead of us, the chariots are on our heads and the deliverer wants to put weaponry in our hands. 

I can see how many people, having only tasted partial freedom, turn it away when the pressure of greatness becomes inconvenient.  We didn’t expect this.